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Kubrick: War movies for real (By STUART A. SAMUELS ’ Wipe -that smile off your face, movie maggots. Stanley is back. And all you -pukes and scumbags who think war movies are just for entertainment are more disturbed than Stanley;4 Stanley Kubrick, that is. After a self-imposed exile following bis adaptation of The .Shining,1’ the creator of such eccentric and mysteriose movie visions as “Dr. Stranglove and “A Clockwork Orange is back with “PnD Metal Jacket a schizophrenic look at a schizophrenic war.Kubrick, a reputed control freak famous for making everyone take notes (are you?), has taken on the Vietnam War in his uniquely fastidious and pedantic style, He result may be the best movie of the year.Although the point may be somewhat moot, comparisons between “Pull Metal Jacket” — the title is a rather opaque reference to deadly rifle ammunition and even deadlier hollow men — and Oliver Stone’s Academy Award-winning “Platoon are inescapable.takes no prisoners. If you get it, good, ff you don’t, you could always kill yourself.‘Jacket is actually two distinct films: One is about the making of “grunts” in boot camp, and the other about what happens to them when they get to “Nam” — the land of the “short time” and payback.overby Private Joker, theremai bly banal Mathew Modine of “1 dy” fame, “Jacket” matter-of-factiy explores the psychosis of war - any war.Kubrick is looking for uni vers als here to the tune of the Trashmen’s “The Bird.” Vietnam is just his prop.Actually, “Jacket” owes more to the traditional war movie genre than “Platoon.” We see how the “phony toughs and crazy-brave are turned into the “Big Green Killing Machine by obscenity-spitting Gunnery Sgt. Hartman (Lee Ermey).Before it is over, privates Joker, Cowboy, Animal Mother, Eight-bali and Rafterman — good Mouseke-teers every one - get stalked by a sniper. Ultimately, they find more than the sniper.But Kubrick, who produced, di-rested and co-wrote the script based on Gustav Hasford's “The Short Timer,” started on “Jacket” firstDespite some revisionist criticism, tots of folks liked Platoon ” It was a good story, with a recognizable “good and evil’’ narrative and comfortable stereotypes The catharsis it offered was like one achieved marching in a parade.Lots of folks may not like “FullFULL METAL JACKETStaffing Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, LeeErmey and Dorian Hare wood; directed by Stanley Kubnck. Rated R graphic violence, language Playing at Jumpers Mall and K-B TheatresCAPITAL RATING: * * * ViFor the cognoscenti, an of Stanley’s tics are still marvelously intact. He ambushes you with his absurdist mack humor (“How can you shoot women and children? ... “You don't lead them as much.”) And Iris famous docomentary-style tracking-shots and hand-held do-seups stick with you like leeches.Rejecting location shooting, Kubrick filmed “Jacket” entirely in London at an abandoned gasworks. You have to admire that.Ermey, a former Marine who fought in Vietnam, is another casting coup for Kubnck, who often uses unknowns. He was hired as the movie’s technical adviser but no one could come dose to his profane verbal assaults, so he got the part.Metal Jacket” because it “frags” all those verities. It is more like being carried in the parade in a body bag. When it comes to his art, StanleyIf he doesn’t win an Academy Award for supporting actor some people might have to do some explaining to the Committee of Jar-headsWith a droning narrative voice-Like spike hairdoos in suburbia, the Vietnam War is now in fashion. Hollywood, which treated the war like the plague, is faffing all over itself to make a buck.“Hamburger Hffi” to coming soon and even “Go Tell the Spartans,” a good Vietnam War movie with Burt Lancaster, to being re-released although it is already on videocas-sette.Alas, Stanley to a hard act to follow. You may not realize it_after you finish watching “Jacket,” but you just survived basic training in movie-making.
Newspaper Details
Capital Gazette
Annapolis, Maryland, US
Fri, Jul 10, 1987
Page 43
Full Page
Clipped by
Jon C.
NJ, USA 16 Jan 2020
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